Thomas Mastrocinque
Thomas learned an appreciation for naked eye stargazing during his time in the military where he spent many a night under dark skies. He started visual astronomy around 2010 with an inexpensive 70mm Celestron refractor. Aperture fever soon took hold and he was forced to purchase a 10” Orion DOB to keep the illness at bay. Eventually this wasn’t enough so he bought a 16” Explorer Scientific DOB, which truly showed him the wonders of the universe. He continued with visual astronomy until April of 2021 when he decided to experiment with astrophotography.
After selling off all of his visual gear to fund this new venture, Thomas purchased an AVX mount, a 6” TPO Newt, and a Canon T3i. Realizing he would never get the results he pined for, he began slowly upgrading. Today Thomas owns an EQ6-R Pro mount and a variety of scopes. His scopes include the RedCat51, the Meade 70mm Quad, an Explorer Scientific 8” Imaging Newt, and a 130mm TS Optics Photoline. His cameras include the ZWO ASI533MC-Pro and the ASI2600MC-Pro.
Thomas will sometimes use NINA and PHD2, but for most casual AP he prefers the ease of the ZWO ASIair system, which has all the acquisition software built-in. For stacking he uses AstroPixelProcessor and then uses StarTools for post processing. Final tweaks are done in Affinity Photo when needed.
Thomas is always eager to learn more about our hobby and is most appreciative to everyone who has helped him get to where he is today.
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